I could see this coming. Unfortunately, the Sheriff didn’t have many defenders or not enough to ignore the hysteria.
One good thing is this man is 82 years old, and still active, I think he will get offers for some other job, in case he cannot afford to retire. He probably reached a point where he said “You know what, I really don’t even need to deal with this foolishness. Screw them, if my years of service can be canceled out so easily, and over a private damn conversation, at that! Let the town fall from the weight of it’s own ignorance!”
Not sure how you could see this coming, since most of what you wrote is incorrect. He’s not a sheriff, he’s one of three elected police commissioners for the town. Perhaps the position is a paid one, but it isn’t a “job” that one would retire from. Perhaps he did decide “screw it” and finally resign after resisting calls to do so. But perhaps he shouldn’t have been calling the president a “f***ing n****r” in the middle of a restaurant. I highly doubt the town will fall down as a result of his absence from the public scene. In fact, I think the town’s response showed that its residents are quite a bit less ignorant than this one jerk might have led others to believe.